Download A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor PDF

Paul Jennings was once born into slavery at the plantation of James and Dolley Madison in Virginia, later turning into a part of the Madison loved ones employees on the White condo. as soon as ultimately emancipated via Senator Daniel Webster later in existence, he might supply an elderly and impoverished Dolley Madison, his former proprietor, cash from his personal pocket, write the 1st White condominium memoir, and notice his sons struggle with the Union military within the Civil battle. He died a loose guy in northwest Washington at seventy five. in keeping with correspondence, criminal files, and magazine entries hardly visible ahead of, this remarkable portrait of the days unearths the mores and attitudes towards slavery of the 19th century, and sheds new gentle on well-known characters akin to James Madison, who believed the white and black populations couldn't coexist as equals; French common Lafayette who used to be appalled via this concept; Dolley Madison, who ruthlessly offered Paul after her husband's loss of life; and plenty of different given that forgotten slaves, abolitionists, and civil correct activists.

"It will certainly be considered as the authoritative Stefan Zweig biography sooner or later. "—Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

This is the approved biography of the world-famous Austrian author Stefan Zweig. It comprises this kind of own element conspicuously absent from Zweig's memoir the realm of the day before today, supplying us a glimpse into the personal international of this grasp of mental perception. Drawing on a wealth of resources held via the Zweig property, to which Oliver Matuschek had targeted entry, he recounts the eventful lifetime of a author spoilt through good fortune, which replaced path below the impression of up to date occasions and ended tragically in a suicide pact along with his moment spouse Lotte. The identify 3 Lives refers back to the 3 significant stages in Zweig's life—his years of apprenticeship, his years of luck as a certified "working writer" in Salzburg, and eventually his years of exile in Britain, the us, and Brazil.

Oliver Matuschek studied politics and sleek historical past, has co-authored numerous documentaries, and has released a number of works, so much lately i do know the Magic of Writing: Catalogue and historical past of the Autograph number of Stefan Zweig (2005).

Fidel Castro is among the best and arguable personalities of our time – he has develop into a fantasy and an icon. He was once the 1st Cuban Caudillo – the fellow who freed his nation from dependence at the united states and who lead his humans to rediscover their nationwide id and satisfaction.

When Danzy Senna's mom and dad married in 1968, they appeared poised to defy background: attractive younger American writers from wildly divergent backgrounds—a white lady with a blue-blood Bostonian lineage and a black guy, the son of a suffering unmarried mom and an unknown father. while their marriage disintegrated 8 years later, the violent, aggravating cut up felt all of the extra tragic for the hopeful symbolism it had as soon as borne.

Decades later, Senna seems to be again not just at her parents' divorce yet on the histories they had attempted so demanding to beat. within the culture of James McBride's the colour of Water, the place Did You Sleep final evening? is "a stunningly rendered own background that mirrors the complexities of race, type, and ethnicity within the United States" (Booklist).

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was once Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) on the college of Oxford. His study on Beowulf remains to be thought of a regular within the box. Tolkien, despite the fact that, not like so much Oxford dons, stepped out of his position as professor to create well known literature.

Tolkien’s best-known writings have been The Hobbit and The Lord of the jewelry, within which he created an absolutely learned global referred to as Middle-earth, vaguely identifiable as Northern Europe in a pre-history that by no means used to be. To deliver his international to lifestyles, he produced special geography and cartography in addition to a mythical history. He peopled the area with varied different types of population and created spoken and written languages for them. by way of doing this, he basically created glossy fable literature and a typical for next writers to chase and leave out. A British ballot on the finish of the 20 th century named The Lord of the earrings an important English-language paintings of that century.

During his lifetime, Tolkien didn't take pleasure in humans concentrating on him instead of on his writings. He felt that his writings have been extra worthwhile of realization. With apologies to the past due gentleman, he's now due a few detect.

Extra resources for A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons

Sample text

25 Rousseau and Diderot made a study in opposites. While the Genevan was pale and hesitant, Diderot was “thickset, with a build like a sedan-chair porter,” as one contemporary declared. Moreover, Diderot was extremely physical: he would constantly gesticulate in conversation, give his interlocutors a sudden embrace to celebrate their consensus, and grasp their arms and legs to drive home a point. ”26 With his ﬂowing blond locks and expansive personality, Diderot mesmerized everyone else who came into his orbit, including the impressionable Rousseau.

One summer evening the citizen militia, returning from their martial exercises, gathered in the square below the windows of his house. Joined by their women and children, they all began to dance in joyous unison. “Love your country, Jean-Jacques,” he recalls his father saying to him as the two of them stood in the window watching the pageantry below. The irony, of course, is that JeanJacques and his father do not participate in this spontaneous theater but rather, framed by their window, observe the spectacle apart.

Any impulse towards writing, and I am really so much ashamed of myself when I see my bulk on a shelf, as well as when I see it in a glass, that I would fain prevent my growing more corpulent either way. —David Hume to David Mallet avid Hume would have been well placed to warn Rousseau about Boswell’s mixture of brazen innocence and disarming geniality. The two men had ﬁrst met in 1757, when Boswell, scarcely seventeen and already driven by the desire to meet the great thinkers of his age, arrived unannounced at the philosopher’s door near High Street in Edinburgh.